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Mrs. Wallop
Fiction Humor The main character in this novel is a carry over from a couple other novels. Her chance to settle the score is oppportune. Chain of Custody Document comes with the sale.Transfer from the Estate of Wheeler Sammons private library collection to new owner. Memorabilia for the bibliophile and English PH.D.'s out there. Wheeler Sammons was published of Who's Who in America and also Lakeside Press .
- GenresFictionCollections
310 pages, Hardcover
First published October 1, 1970
25 people want to read
About the author
Peter De Vries
54 books164 followersPeter De Vries is responsible for contributing to the cultural vernacular such witticisms as "Nostalgia ain't what it used to be" and "Deep down, he's shallow." He was, according to Kingsley Amis, "the funniest serious writer to be found on either side of the Atlantic." “Quick with quips so droll and witty, so penetrating and precise that you almost don’t feel them piercing your pretensions, Peter De Vries was perhaps America’s best comic novelist not named Mark Twain. . .” (Sam McManis, Sacramento Bee).
His achievement seemed best appreciated by his fellow writers. Harper Lee, naming the great American writers, said, “Peter De Vries . . . is the Evelyn Waugh of our time". Anthony Burgess called De Vries “surely one of the great prose virtuosos of modern America.”
Peter De Vries was a radio actor in the 1930s, and editor for Poetry magazine from 1938 to 1944. During World War II he served in the U.S. Marines attaining the rank of Captain, and was seconded to the O.S.S., predecessor to the CIA.
He joined the staff of The New Yorker magazine at the insistence of James Thurber and worked there from 1944 to 1987. A prolific writer, De Vries wrote short stories, reviews, poetry, essays, a play, novellas, and twenty-three novels, several of which were made into films.
De Vries met his wife, Katinka Loeser, while at Poetry magazine. They married and moved to Westport, Connecticut, where they raised 4 children. The death of his 10-year-old daughter Emily from leukemia inspired The Blood of the Lamb, the most poignant and the most autobiographical of De Vries's novels.
In Westport, De Vries formed a lifelong friendship with the young J. D. Salinger, who later described the writing process as "opening a vein and bleeding onto the page." The two writers clearly "understood each other very well” (son Derek De Vries in "The Return of Peter De Vries", Westport Magazine, April 2006).
De Vries received an honorary degree in 1979 from Susquehanna University, and was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters in May 1983.
His books were sadly out of print by the time of his death. After the New Yorker published a critical reappraisal of De Vries’ work however (“Few writers have understood literary comedy as well as De Vries, and few comic novelists have had his grasp of tragedy”), The University of Chicago Press began reissuing his works in 2005, starting with The Blood of the Lamb and Slouching Toward Kalamazoo.
His achievement seemed best appreciated by his fellow writers. Harper Lee, naming the great American writers, said, “Peter De Vries . . . is the Evelyn Waugh of our time". Anthony Burgess called De Vries “surely one of the great prose virtuosos of modern America.”
Peter De Vries was a radio actor in the 1930s, and editor for Poetry magazine from 1938 to 1944. During World War II he served in the U.S. Marines attaining the rank of Captain, and was seconded to the O.S.S., predecessor to the CIA.
He joined the staff of The New Yorker magazine at the insistence of James Thurber and worked there from 1944 to 1987. A prolific writer, De Vries wrote short stories, reviews, poetry, essays, a play, novellas, and twenty-three novels, several of which were made into films.
De Vries met his wife, Katinka Loeser, while at Poetry magazine. They married and moved to Westport, Connecticut, where they raised 4 children. The death of his 10-year-old daughter Emily from leukemia inspired The Blood of the Lamb, the most poignant and the most autobiographical of De Vries's novels.
In Westport, De Vries formed a lifelong friendship with the young J. D. Salinger, who later described the writing process as "opening a vein and bleeding onto the page." The two writers clearly "understood each other very well” (son Derek De Vries in "The Return of Peter De Vries", Westport Magazine, April 2006).
De Vries received an honorary degree in 1979 from Susquehanna University, and was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters in May 1983.
His books were sadly out of print by the time of his death. After the New Yorker published a critical reappraisal of De Vries’ work however (“Few writers have understood literary comedy as well as De Vries, and few comic novelists have had his grasp of tragedy”), The University of Chicago Press began reissuing his works in 2005, starting with The Blood of the Lamb and Slouching Toward Kalamazoo.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
July 27, 2020
"A real platter of nettles" (9). *What a way to describe an unsavory person.
"But getting back to my own feeling about all this oriental wisdom now in vogue, especially Chinese proverbs, is that they sound profound at the time you hear them, mentally very filling so to speak, but they don't stick to your ribs. An hour later I'm hungry for another Chinese aphorism" (10).
“‘…he’s going to spend the summer on the Continent.’
“‘Which one?'” (11).
“‘Do you think she’s still around here anywhere?’ she said. ‘She must be a pretty spotty banana by now’” (15).
“‘He is the one whose poems looks like they been fished out of a bowl of alphabet soup?’” (18). *On e.e. cummings.
“‘Oh, there you are,’ he said, sitting up glass-eyed. He pointed a finger at me, as though wanting to share with me the discovery of my whereabouts” (19).
“‘If you’re the same, why not run down to Gatlinburg, Tennessee, for a couple weeks’ vacation among the mountain folk. It will do you a world of good. Nobody there has ever heard of the human condition…’” (22).
“You watch a woman like that talk as much as listen to her…” (22).
“'People are awful. This human nature is shabby stuff, as you may know from introspection’” (24).
"Such a tangle of desires and motivations are we all that half the time we don't know ourselves why we're doing things" (54-55).
"He's one of those people who when they read a book look like a trombone player" (100). *Describing a character in need of spectacles.
"It's open season on mothers. They pin everything on us – except a rose" (125).
"...with his octave of white keys for a grin..." (141).
"...the giant illuminated Nativity creche, or Christorama" (155).
"'Is it any wonder my father would turn the doormat around so that he read the word "Welcome" on it as he left the house? '" (163).
"'They couldn't get the truck started. But learning that the house in question was a mobile home, they had a bright idea. Why didn't this party just drive this particular fire to the firehouse? Which they did, tearing down the highway 60 miles an hour-"like a house afire" indeed'" (250).
"'There are simply too many people. Man is not a species intended by Nature to swarm. We're not bees. So when we are forced to swarm, we sting'" (257).
"...outside, the oak leaves rustle like empty brown cups in an all the plundered candy box" (300).
" Because the garden of our heart is something that we've simply got to weed " (305).
"But getting back to my own feeling about all this oriental wisdom now in vogue, especially Chinese proverbs, is that they sound profound at the time you hear them, mentally very filling so to speak, but they don't stick to your ribs. An hour later I'm hungry for another Chinese aphorism" (10).
“‘…he’s going to spend the summer on the Continent.’
“‘Which one?'” (11).
“‘Do you think she’s still around here anywhere?’ she said. ‘She must be a pretty spotty banana by now’” (15).
“‘He is the one whose poems looks like they been fished out of a bowl of alphabet soup?’” (18). *On e.e. cummings.
“‘Oh, there you are,’ he said, sitting up glass-eyed. He pointed a finger at me, as though wanting to share with me the discovery of my whereabouts” (19).
“‘If you’re the same, why not run down to Gatlinburg, Tennessee, for a couple weeks’ vacation among the mountain folk. It will do you a world of good. Nobody there has ever heard of the human condition…’” (22).
“You watch a woman like that talk as much as listen to her…” (22).
“'People are awful. This human nature is shabby stuff, as you may know from introspection’” (24).
"Such a tangle of desires and motivations are we all that half the time we don't know ourselves why we're doing things" (54-55).
"He's one of those people who when they read a book look like a trombone player" (100). *Describing a character in need of spectacles.
"It's open season on mothers. They pin everything on us – except a rose" (125).
"...with his octave of white keys for a grin..." (141).
"...the giant illuminated Nativity creche, or Christorama" (155).
"'Is it any wonder my father would turn the doormat around so that he read the word "Welcome" on it as he left the house? '" (163).
"'They couldn't get the truck started. But learning that the house in question was a mobile home, they had a bright idea. Why didn't this party just drive this particular fire to the firehouse? Which they did, tearing down the highway 60 miles an hour-"like a house afire" indeed'" (250).
"'There are simply too many people. Man is not a species intended by Nature to swarm. We're not bees. So when we are forced to swarm, we sting'" (257).
"...outside, the oak leaves rustle like empty brown cups in an all the plundered candy box" (300).
" Because the garden of our heart is something that we've simply got to weed " (305).
July 22, 2020
"Peter De Vries… like Adlai Stevenson and Mark Twain, has suffered from the American assumption that anyone with a sense of humor is not to be taken seriously. De Vries is the most domestic of writers. Except for his masterpiece, The Blood of the Lamb, his literary charades more or less cheerfully present a more or less repetitive series of matrimonial alarums and excursions."
"Plot is not Peter De Vries' thing. Neither is message."
"Kingsley Amis called him the funniest author on either side of the Atlantic, which is a pretty big compliment"
"Plot is not Peter De Vries' thing. Neither is message."
"Kingsley Amis called him the funniest author on either side of the Atlantic, which is a pretty big compliment"
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews